Are religion and education innately at odds?

[memphis]

Seems to me they are. The goals of education are inquiry and critical thinking. The goals of religion is instilling faith and impressing respect for a established hierarchy. I don't see how these two aims can be reconciled.

[Keystone Phil]

Religion calls for inquiry and critical thinking as well. Religion haters will never admit this, of course.

[Matt Damon™]

Yes and no. Exclusivist, exoteric religion such as the abrahamic faiths yes. But more esoteric religions like shinto or buddhism no.

[JSojourner]

Not in the least.  There is no shortage of religious dumbs.  And there is also no shortage of dumbs who are vociferously secular. 

There IS a wonderful, erudite critique of Evangelicalism -- written by an Evangelical intellectual -- that addresses this, at least in that particular millieu.  I commend to everyone Dr. Mark Noll's monumental, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. 

[Alcon]

I hope we're not going to equate education and intelligence here...

I would argue that faith is innately at odds with analytical scientific process.  If you equate religion to faith (often true at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition) and analytical scientific process with education (not true enough), then yeah I suppose.  Some Christians would argue that they would have their beliefs regardless of faith, which is fine, but I think having faith in itself is inherently unscientific.

Of course, the number of people who don't exercise analytical processes extends far into the secular "educated," too.  All of us, selectively, to varying degrees, shame on us.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Religion calls for inquiry and critical thinking as well. Religion haters will never admit this, of course.

Well sometimes yes, but have you read some of BushOklahoma's posts? He often says in regards to evolution and the like "The Bible says it, so that ends it, period." So I'd just modify your statement to not apply to the abominations of most conservative denominations.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

There IS a wonderful, erudite critique of Evangelicalism -- written by an Evangelical intellectual -- that addresses this, at least in that particular millieu.  I commend to everyone Dr. Mark Noll's monumental, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. 

There IS a word that is powerful enough to create:  a universe out of nothing, a man out of the dust, a path for the untoward, and a new heart out of one stained by sin.  I commend to everyone the word of God:

www.biblegateway.com

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Seems to me they are. The goals of education are inquiry and critical thinking. The goals of religion is instilling faith and impressing respect for a established hierarchy. I don't see how these two aims can be reconciled.

Pro 9:10 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

The "established hierarchy" is the Holy One, Jesus Christ: "God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ." (Acts 2:36)

Therefore, one remains ignornant of both self and the world, until they have knowledge of Jesus Christ.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Religion calls for inquiry and critical thinking as well. Religion haters will never admit this, of course.

[JSojourner]

There IS a wonderful, erudite critique of Evangelicalism -- written by an Evangelical intellectual -- that addresses this, at least in that particular millieu.  I commend to everyone Dr. Mark Noll's monumental, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. 

There IS a word that is powerful enough to create:  a universe out of nothing, a man out of the dust, a path for the untoward, and a new heart out of one stained by sin.  I commend to everyone the word of God:

www.biblegateway.com

An awesome and extremely helpful site when doing Bible study.  I particularly love the availability of multiple versions, ranging from the King James to Eugene Peterson's monumental translation, The Message.  The whole site is so user-friendly, too.  Thanks for reminding us!

[Alcon]

I would be interested if anyone has any arguments against my faith/scientific method point.

I'm sure there are a lot, but I've never really heard one forwarded.

[Bono]

There IS a wonderful, erudite critique of Evangelicalism -- written by an Evangelical intellectual -- that addresses this, at least in that particular millieu.  I commend to everyone Dr. Mark Noll's monumental, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. 

There IS a word that is powerful enough to create:  a universe out of nothing, a man out of the dust, a path for the untoward, and a new heart out of one stained by sin.  I commend to everyone the word of God:

www.biblegateway.com

An awesome and extremely helpful site when doing Bible study.  I particularly love the availability of multiple versions, ranging from the King James to Eugene Peterson's monumental translation, The Message.  The whole site is so user-friendly, too.  Thanks for reminding us!

Please tell me you're joking.

[A18]

No non-tautological view* can be justified without some reliance on intuition.

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I take it that "faith," as used here, refers to the justifications for a proposition that are strictly intuitive, as opposed to empirical.

What, however, does the term "scientific process" mean to you? If it simply refers to the historical practices of so-called "scientists," your statement is hopelessly wrong. No one acquainted with the history of science could think that its development hasn't been heavily influenced by intuition. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3d ed. 1996). (This is true even without bringing up the uncomfortable fact that science's critical assumptions--that one's own memory and sense perceptions are generally reliable--is based entirely on intuition.) Nor do the historical practices of scientists gain any privileged status merely because they were the historical practices of scientists.

Perhaps by "scientific process," you instead meant some "idealized" version of the scientific method--specifically, one in which intuition plays little or no role in forming conclusions. But your statement still falls flat on its face. An infinite number of theories can account for any set of experimental data. How does one decide which to believe, if not by reliance on intuition?

* - I assume here that logic is not itself a subset of intuition.

[JSojourner]

There IS a wonderful, erudite critique of Evangelicalism -- written by an Evangelical intellectual -- that addresses this, at least in that particular millieu.  I commend to everyone Dr. Mark Noll's monumental, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. 

There IS a word that is powerful enough to create:  a universe out of nothing, a man out of the dust, a path for the untoward, and a new heart out of one stained by sin.  I commend to everyone the word of God:

www.biblegateway.com

An awesome and extremely helpful site when doing Bible study.  I particularly love the availability of multiple versions, ranging from the King James to Eugene Peterson's monumental translation, The Message.  The whole site is so user-friendly, too.  Thanks for reminding us!

Please tell me you're joking.

Not at all.  Peterson is a rigorous scholar, just not a PCA theocrat.  He is, however, more conservative than I. 

As to The Message itself, I love it...not as a primary source.  Give me the NRSV, TNIV or NIV-I anyday.  But it makes for a wonderful tool to use in addition to those versions.

[John Dibble]

No, not necessarily. Go back a few centuries and you'll find that the most educated men were priests. In fact many of the things we know today come are at least partially based on the discoveries and experiments of religious men - take Gregor Mendel for instance, the man who many regard as the father of genetics.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

No non-tautological view* can be justified without some reliance on intuition.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I take it that "faith," as used here, refers to the justifications for a proposition that are strictly intuitive, as opposed to empirical.

What, however, does the term "scientific process" mean to you? If it simply refers to the historical practices of so-called "scientists," your statement is hopelessly wrong. No one acquainted with the history of science could think that its development hasn't been heavily influenced by intuition. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3d ed. 1996). (This is true even without bringing up the uncomfortable fact that science's critical assumptions--that one's own memory and sense perceptions are generally reliable--is based entirely on intuition.) Nor do the historical practices of scientists gain any privileged status merely because they were the historical practices of scientists.

Perhaps by "scientific process," you instead meant some "idealized" version of the scientific method--specifically, one in which intuition plays little or no role in forming conclusions. But your statement still falls flat on its face. An infinite number of theories can account for any set of experimental data. How does one decide which to believe, if not by reliance on intuition?

* - I assume here that logic is not itself a subset of intuition.

This is the Truth (except the assumption - and Kuhn to an extent, actually the nature of the 'revolution' is much ambigious than most realize). I'll further by noting that many of the greatest theories in science (such as the existence of atoms, general relativity and to a certain extent, evolution) were posited before the apperance of any evidence of proving them. Now what this means for science I'll leave up to you...

Also I find alot of this a battle between cosmologies, not rational enquiry. How is Memphis to know himself that science brings the best conclusions - how much scientists does he actually know (This is not btw a criticism of Science, just of the "If it's science it must be true" idea - nothing in history is so transparently false. Anyone who still doubt that this view holds a great deal of sway should look at the global warming debate; how am I, with no climatological training, to intrepret that data, or am I to follow what the intrepreters say?)

In saying that I agree with Alcon on the subject of this thread - dogmatism not some abstract 'religion' is what is the problem here.

EDIT: Oh yeah, it is naive to think that education is about rational inquiry.

[Bono]

There IS a wonderful, erudite critique of Evangelicalism -- written by an Evangelical intellectual -- that addresses this, at least in that particular millieu.  I commend to everyone Dr. Mark Noll's monumental, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. 

There IS a word that is powerful enough to create:  a universe out of nothing, a man out of the dust, a path for the untoward, and a new heart out of one stained by sin.  I commend to everyone the word of God:

www.biblegateway.com

An awesome and extremely helpful site when doing Bible study.  I particularly love the availability of multiple versions, ranging from the King James to Eugene Peterson's monumental translation, The Message.  The whole site is so user-friendly, too.  Thanks for reminding us!

Please tell me you're joking.

Not at all.  Peterson is a rigorous scholar, just not a PCA theocrat.  He is, however, more conservative than I. 

As to The Message itself, I love it...not as a primary source.  Give me the NRSV, TNIV or NIV-I anyday.  But it makes for a wonderful tool to use in addition to those versions.

Prior to today, I had never heard of Peterson, so I don't know if he is a "PCA theocrat" or not, though why you think that's required for me to like a certain scholar is beyond me.

I have, however, read parts of the message, and I think it does not bode well for its usefulness that I couldn't stop laughing after reading it. It belittles the Scriptures' dignity.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Not at all. There are plenty of stupid people who use religion as any easy way out of thinking for themselves, but there are plenty of intelligent people who are also deeply religious. As Dibble pointed out, the father of the field of genetics was one of them.

[Torie]

The short answer from this near atheist is that the assertion is basically ludicrous. One can easily separate out that which is a function of a leap of faith from that which animates from reason and/or empirical evidence, and/or skill sets.

[Alcon]

No non-tautological view* can be justified without some reliance on intuition.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I take it that "faith," as used here, refers to the justifications for a proposition that are strictly intuitive, as opposed to empirical.

What, however, does the term "scientific process" mean to you? If it simply refers to the historical practices of so-called "scientists," your statement is hopelessly wrong. No one acquainted with the history of science could think that its development hasn't been heavily influenced by intuition. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3d ed. 1996). (This is true even without bringing up the uncomfortable fact that science's critical assumptions--that one's own memory and sense perceptions are generally reliable--is based entirely on intuition.) Nor do the historical practices of scientists gain any privileged status merely because they were the historical practices of scientists.

Perhaps by "scientific process," you instead meant some "idealized" version of the scientific method--specifically, one in which intuition plays little or no role in forming conclusions. But your statement still falls flat on its face. An infinite number of theories can account for any set of experimental data. How does one decide which to believe, if not by reliance on intuition?

* - I assume here that logic is not itself a subset of intuition.

I was using "faith" to mean a belief that transcends external secular input and skepticism, including intuition; even though I'd argue that faith is of human origin, and therefore at minimum intuition.  But the Judeo-Christian faiths, as I've come to understand them, believe that religious belief is something greater than a A) a sum of intuitions, B) a fallible human interpretation of intuitions.  At least, very few people hold the sum of their intuitions in such concrete terms.

I was using "scientific method" generically; if "faith" is defined as I did, which is my understanding of the predominate Judeo-Christian definition, it's essentially irrelevant.  It directly contradicts everything that makes science, science.

Here, more simple way of saying it:

I think most Christians, even if confronted with evidence that would make their religious beliefs fail reasonable burden-of-proof, would still believe.  I think that their "faith" is generally distinguished from their "assumption" in a meaningful way.  It is my understanding that Judeo-Christian religions (or at least institutions) encourage this.

I think that is inherently in opposition to the fundamentals  of science.

[Smid]

Science is about the unbiased observation of quantitative data and is not a religion, nor does it compete with religion. There were times when the church has clearly refused to believe proven scientific observation - such as Galileo and Copernicous and the whole "earth revolves around the sun" thing (I've always found that particularly odd because it's not in any way at odds with the Bible), however I think this tends to be the exception rather than the rule and I think most Christians do not disagree with any proven scientific fact (I certainly don't know any who do).

Collectively, however, we still do not know everything - there is a point where scientific fact ends which therefore is the point at which faith begins. Anything that is believed by anyone which has not yet been proven, is therefore faith. If something is scientifically proveable, it is a scientific law. Until it's proven, it is a theory. To believe in a theory is to have faith in it, because it's not proveable - otherwise it would be a law.

Personally, I believe a literal account of Creation, however this is based on faith - I don't have any proof that God created the world in this manner. Others believe that God created the world through the Big Bang and Darwin's theory of evolution. Still others believe in the Big Bang and the theory of evolution, but don't attribute it to God. There are plenty of other beliefs regarding the origin of life and the universe, but the point remains - they are all theories, not a single one has been proven yet and therefore all of them require faith in order to believe in them.

Science is not at odds with the truth, nor is it at odds with something not proven: it is only at odds with something proven to be false. Until such time as someone proves that religion is false, science and education cannot possibly be at odds with them.

[Torie]

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Alcon, religion certainly does not use the scientific method and does not pretend to, or shouldn't. It relies on leaps of faith. If and when the scientific method "proves" that there are no metaphysical forces beyond our comprehension using such a method, I would think at that juncture many of the educated "religious" would tack into some sort of construct where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, ie that there is some sort of collective sentimentality of togetherness that has echos of a religious "spirit."

Ya, I know I am babbling and not making much sense. And so it goes.

[Eraserhead]

Yes, unless you are learning about different religions in order to better understand the impact that they have had on various civilizations/countries/conflicts/whatever.

[pbrower2a]

Science is about the unbiased observation of quantitative data and is not a religion, nor does it compete with religion. There were times when the church has clearly refused to believe proven scientific observation - such as Galileo and Copernicous and the whole "earth revolves around the sun" thing (I've always found that particularly odd because it's not in any way at odds with the Bible), however I think this tends to be the exception rather than the rule and I think most Christians do not disagree with any proven scientific fact (I certainly don't know any who do).

Collectively, however, we still do not know everything - there is a point where scientific fact ends which therefore is the point at which faith begins. Anything that is believed by anyone which has not yet been proven, is therefore faith. If something is scientifically proveable, it is a scientific law. Until it's proven, it is a theory. To believe in a theory is to have faith in it, because it's not proveable - otherwise it would be a law.

In scientific parlance, a theory is an explanation of natural phenomena. At times it is fact; so it is with the atomic theory of matter. That rarely runs afoul of religious doctrine because few religions say anything of the composition of matter.

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No, the Big Bang is the first provable event of the Universe as we understand it. Red shifts establish that the universe has been expanding at a tangible rate, and that expansion suggests that everything in the Universe came from one point of infinite density and temperature. Comparative anatomy, the fossil record, and genetics all attest that Darwinian evolution explains how living things developed. No matter how much we may find it insulting, we humans are apes, and the only meaningful distinction between us and chimpanzees is intellectual activity that resulted from evolution.

Just look at dogs. In a short time, dog breeds vary so much in size and shape that they almost suggest different species. Example: a dachshund looks very different from a Newfoundland dog (an animal, pound-for-pound, stronger than any other mammal) -- even more than a house cat differs in appearance other than size from a tiger.

If God created the Universe, then He established such laws as the binding curve of energy, the periodic law, the inverse-square laws of gravitation and electromagnetic forces, entropy laws, conservation of matter and energy, and consistent rules of mathematics.

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There is no such thing as 100% proof of anything. There only good explanations and poor ones, and some can be improved. It's up to science to refine theories as facts, many gleaned from mundane experiments, either attest to or refine scientific theories.

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We can show consequences of religious beliefs. Surely you despise a god like Baal. I find multiple gods absurd because of the relations of physical phenomena; there couldn't be a separate "wind god" and "rain god" because wind and rain are related phenomena. A change of the periodic law vastly changes the chemical qualities of matter (thus if the s layer of electrons can contain four electrons, then hydrogen and helium are solids at conventional temperatures, and if the s layer can hold two electrons but the p layer can contain only four, then carbon is an inert gas), and if the binding law of  energy places the minimum point of potential energy somewhere else, then an earth-like planet isn't quite so earth-like. The low point is iron, as good a place as any. If the low point were calcium, then iron would be scarce; iron is essential for life as a component of hemoglobin in vertebrate life. Iron is also necessary for a magnetic core of a planet capable (like Earth)  of fending off deadly high-energy, low-wavelength energy that would make a Mars-like planet hostile to life. But if the low point of potential energy is higher, then a different set of problems arises.  Copper is necessary for technology, but in excess it is toxic to living things, so if the low point is zinc, then there is just too much copper. Germanium? If it is the low point, then arsenic is plentiful. If any element is easy to get too much of, it is arsenic. Krypton might seem harmless enough as an inert gas -- but it is not respirable, and it is not the sort of element that one wants flooding the lower atmosphere because, heavier than carbon dioxide, water vapor, or oxygen it would flood out the gaseous necessities of life, let alone those necessary (methane, ammonia, and water vapor) necessary for the formation of life. Toxic arsenic, selenium, and bromine would be plentiful.     

[RIP Robert H Bork]

No, not necessarily. Go back a few centuries and you'll find that the most educated men were priests. In fact many of the things we know today come are at least partially based on the discoveries and experiments of religious men - take Gregor Mendel for instance, the man who many regard as the father of genetics.